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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Scranton chapter.

Today, I want to tell a story. And oh boy, do I have plenty of stories to tell. There’s just too many, I don’t know which one to pick. I guess I’ll just share a tale about a psycho ex-lover.  

 

It was a cold, winter night. No, I’m just kidding.  

  

Let me restart.  

 

Once upon a very, very, very long time ago, I met a boy. I thought it was love at first sight- that was my first mistake. What I thought was going to be a fairytale actually turned into a nightmare. And when I say nightmare, I am not referring to dreams of a spider crawling in your hair. I am talking about when you wake up screaming, screaming so loud that you can actually feel fear and pain in your heartbeat. I am talking about when you wake up profusely sweating, nervous that you have a fear, afraid to get out of bed to turn on the light.  

 

A year ago, today, I was floating in a cloud of toxicity. I was suffocating. I was sad. I believed that the sole purpose of my existence was to care for and love another human being. I was naive. I was oblivious to the fact that the feelings I felt were a mere figment of my imagination. I never felt anything, and I stand by those words. Everything was fake. Everything was a lie. For a year and a half or so, my life was a dream, a nightmare. And I am grateful that I woke up, more alive than ever before.  

 

I sat in my bedroom crying about a boy who today means nothing to me, a boy who never meant anything to me. I sat at my desk pretending to study and pretending like I was happy. I was never happy. My life was a repeating record of highs and lows. At my highs, I felt a temporary sensation of peace. At my lows, I felt like the world was ending, which it was. The world was collapsing, and I was ready to fall in. Until suddenly, I wasn’t. I didn’t have any feelings for this bad boy. I simply picked a rotten apple off the tree of life. As I took one last bite into the apple core, I realized that I was not the problem, but that it was the rotten fruit pumping toxins into my blood.  

 

In my title, I vowed to set my truth free. The truth is I have restarted my life and I could not be any happier. The truth is I do not let one person define me. The truth is that I was given a second chance to turn my life around and jump at every opportunity.  

 

A year ago, today, I stared at my phone waiting for texts back. I stared at my phone waiting for some boy to invite me over to watch a movie. A year ago, today, I almost let someone ruin me. I almost let someone ruin my whole entire life. And for what? I cannot answer that question.  

 

So, I might not have all the answers. If I am being completely honest, I do not have one answer. All I know is that I love who I am at this exact moment. I love who I am in the present. And I love who I am becoming.  

 

Carly Long

Scranton '22

Carly is a senior studying Strategic Communications with a concentration in Legal Studies at The University of Scranton. This is her third year as CC at HC Scranton, which she hopes to continue to elevate. In her free time Carly can be found writing, working out, or buying new products to feed her skincare addiction.